report of proceedings the asialink conversations india 2008 · the asialink conversations india...

The Asialink Conversations India 2008 17–18 OctOber 2008

PrOceedings rePOrt Of

The University of Melbourne

mr shivshankar menon, mr sid myer, mr richard armitage

dr montek singh ahluwalia, mr tarun das, ms jenny mcgregor

left to right Ms Sumani DashMs Maureen WelchMs Indrani BagchiMs Anna SongMs Jenny McGregor Mr Vinod C Khanna Dr Ly Qui Trung Mr Debnath GuharoyMs Meileng TamMrs Nguyen Thi Hong Thuy

Mr Rowan CallickMs Patricia Roessler Ms Mara Bun Prof Anthony Milner Mr Sudhir T Devare HE Mr Sayakane SisouvongMr Sid Myer Mr Tarun Das Ms Gillian Bird Ms Kiran Pasricha

Prof Tai Yong TanMs Rinalia Abdul RahimMr Greg EarlMr Sathit ParniangtongMr Nick van GelderDr Aileen San Pablo-BavieraMr Vikram NimkarMr Shahriman LockmanMr SN MenonMr Basudev Mukherjee

absent Mr Dilip ChenoyMr RS RamasubramanianMr BJ PandaMr Madhu Goud Yaskhi

cOnversatiOns india 2008 delegates

2 tHe asialinK cOnversatiOns india 2008

The Asialink Conversations India 2008 brought together leaders in government, business, academia, non-government organizations and the media from six ASEAN member countries, Australia and India. The partnership between Asialink and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) – India’s premier business association – was a marvellous experience for all of us. It was a privilege to be included in sessions with the India-Japan-United States Trilateral Dialogue being hosted concurrently. It was an honour to hear from current leaders of India like Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and Mr Shivshankar Menon, Foreign Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs.

Our sincere thanks to our major sponsors, the Sidney Myer Fund and Singapore Airlines, as well as our-long term supporters, The University of Melbourne and The Myer Foundation. The Confederation of Indian Industry, particularly Ms Kiran Pasricha, Deputy Director General, and the Aspen Institute, Mr Basudev Mukherjee, Director, were invaluable in planning and delivering the Conversations. The generous support of CII in so many ways is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

Professor Tony Milner, Professorial Fellow at Asialink, The University of Melbourne, and Basham Professor of Asian History at The Australian National University, and Jenny McGregor, CEO of Asialink, were both instrumental in the success of the Conversations India 2008 and we are indebted to their vision and commitment.

Asialink Conversations are conducted under the Chatham House Rule and we are pleased to present the substance of discussions in this report of proceedings.

Mr sid MyerChairman, AsialinkThe University of Melbourne

Mr tarun dasChief MentorConfederation of Indian Industry

rOOM fOr Many big Players There was a strong desire for regional institutions to reflect a multi-polar Asia rather than be dominated by any one country or be disrupted by tensions between any two major powers. India was seen as providing balance alongside older regional powers like the United States and emerging powers like China.

a Place fOr australia Delegates welcomed the growing Australian involvement in the region with both Indian and Southeast Asian representatives noting how Australian institutions were sometimes more engaged with the region than institutions from their own countries. There was support for more ‘second track’ regional gatherings – perhaps drawing on the Conversations model – to pave the way for greater official cooperation.

tHe cHallenges aHeadDelegates were confident that Asian countries would navigate the current economic crisis more skilfully than in 1997-98. But there was more pessimism about the prospects for a common approach to controlling climate change and energy demand. Delegates were confident, however, that regional players were more open to shared approaches to common problems like education and labour mobility.

The Indian delegates noted that it was the first time in 15 years that they had been encouraged to discuss the beliefs and historical role of Gandhi at an international forum and everyone felt enriched by the experience. The Indian delegates also appreciated this new opportunity to expand their ASEAN relationships. It is impossible to capture the complex Conversations in a summary but we would like to highlight the following points:

tHe ‘asian HOuse’ India’s redefinition of ‘open region-alism’ to embrace the multiplicity of institutions and groups now competing for space in modern Asia was much discussed. The argument was put for adjusting to a new reality of overlapping groups with changing memberships and geographic definitions rather than pursue a single, neatly defined, regional architecture.

a new regiOnal fOrce There was strong support for India to develop its ‘Look East’ policy to engage more broadly with Northeast Asia, the ASEAN region and Australia. Delegates agreed this would provide more diversity to regional organisations and provide a new sinew to the region by reinvigorating an old cultural and trade connection.

frOM tHe cHairMen

tHe asialinK cOnversatiOns india 2008 3

India Today – An Overview

sPeaKer Mr Tarun Das cHair Mr Sid Myer

The relevance of a rising India to Australia, the ASEAN countries and the rest of Asia was to be a constant theme throughout the sessions of the Asialink Conversations. Anticipating this, Asialink invited Co-Convener and Confederation of Indian Industry chief mentor Tarun Das to draw on his long career as an interpreter of his country to the world to set the scene.

Tarun Das explained that since inde-pendence India had been through four phases of economic development before getting to the point where it is now seen as one of the few potential areas of strength in the global economy in the midst of the global credit crunch.

During the period between 1947 and 1991 the challenge had been to keep the country together resulting in heavy regulation of the economy and government involvement in the management of business. After looking north to the Soviet Union for ideas the country had concentrated on developing its public sector. The first signs of change emerged in 1984 under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who was keen to engage the world with the first prime ministerial visit to China in 26 years.

With that brief economic history, Das said he wanted to set out nine basic points about the nature of modern India that might help provide a framework for the next two days of discussion. Here are some extracts.

•

cOMPlexity “Every state has a different language from every other state. Every one of us sitting around this table if we come from a different part of India has different food, different marriage ceremonies, different everything. But we are all Indian. We are more complicated than the EU. We are a mess.”

cHallenges “India has every challenge that any country has anywhere in the world. We have challenges of poverty, inequality and therefore trying to have inclusive growth … the challenge of educating everyone, the challenge of health for everyone ... of fresh water ... of transforming agriculture, the challenge of training 500 million young people in the next ten years.”

A new paradigm of development emerged after 1991 when India faced economic difficulties. This saw a liberalisation of the economy, a doubling of economic growth and the emergence of the Look East policy with the opening the first Indian trade office in Southeast Asia (Singapore, 1994).

After another slowdown and a threat from Chinese imports, the years between 1997 and 2003 were a time of pain and restructuring amid a sense the country was finally getting its act together. By 2003–2008 Indian industry was already competitive at home and abroad. Companies were actively acquiring interests offshore with 3000 Indian companies operating in Singapore and several hundred in the United States and the United Kingdom. Perhaps more importantly there was a new sense of easy cooperation and trust between bureaucrats and industry.

sessiOn 1

mr tarun das mr sid myer


cHaOs “We’ve got probably too much democracy in this country … we are very individualistic as Indians.I come from a part of the country, Bengal, where if you have two people you have three trade unions.”

cOntinuity “We are not for sudden change. We are very much into process, slow steady change. This tradition bound society you need to understand.”

cHange “But because of television, IT and telecoms we have got huge change happening. This is a very, very conflicting situation – we are getting pulled into the 21st century much faster than we would normally do because of technology.”

cOnsuMers “We have got an amazing number of consumers. East Asians generally are much more visible now with their products than the westerners with their products. And they have been able to out-compete the western companies on price and they give good quality.”

industry “Indian industry, which ten years ago was saying ‘Keep the world out. We’re scared.’ That has gone. Indian industry is not whining any more. They are not afraid of competition. There is a new feeling of confidence within Indian industry”

self-esteeM “If 1991 was a great change in our economic paradigm with the start of liberalisation, in 2008 the nuclear agreement with the world is a huge milestone in our evolution. We don’t know how big it will be in terms of bringing new technology and clean energy to India.”

yOutH “We are a very young nation. Our children and grandchildren are turning us upside down. They are finding solutions to old problems in different ways.”

•

While school enrolments were rising and India was developing its high-level educational institutions, there was a problem keeping poorer students at school long enough to lift the overall quality of the workforce. In a hint of a more impassioned debate to come later in the day, one delegate quoted Mahatma Gandhi’s exhortation that the government needed to think of the lowest of the low.

The dichotomy in the education system was also reflected in infrastructure development, argued another delegate – who said that the private sector had been moving ahead with developing hard infrastructure but infrastructure services like water, sanitation and health were being left behind.

This prompted a reflection that while Indians were proud of their ability to maintain a democracy through challenges that have undone democratic government in other developing countries, they were also inclined to blame democracy for not dealing with difficult challenges. “We love our democracy, but we sometimes make our democracy an excuse,” a delegate said.

Inspired by Tarun Das’ invitation to demonstrate the diversity and ferocity of opinion that a gathering of Indians can generate, participants in the day’s first conversation didn’t let him down.

India’s population, which is 1.1 billion and on track to overtake China, was often seen as its biggest problem, said one delegate, when it had actually turned out to be the country’s biggest strength. The figure of 500 million looming new entrants to the labour market was to become a frequently cited figure through the gathering but this delegate said these people were shaking up the country by creating new businesses, moving cities and cross pollinating talent across the country. “The more people get jobs, the more they start thinking about prosperity and thinking less about religion and tradition.”

A remarkable product of India’s embrace of deregulation has been the blossoming of its media – another delegate argued that this had played a little-recognised role in changing the country. With around 300 television news channels there is an insatiable appetite for news and this has become “part of Indian democracy, part of the chaos India is”.While this delegate argued the media was doing a good job of highlighting problems in the country, another was more sceptical and questioned whether many of these chaotic, competing media outlets really got to the heart of the country’s problems.

Indian progress on free trade talks with ASEAN, Korea, Japan, the European Union and Australia was held up as a motif for a new more outward looking India – with this openness now even penetrating the smaller cities. But it was also argued that this meant rural areas were falling even further behind and development disparities were opening up between the fast growing south and the slower moving north and east.


Living with the great powers is a significant theme of the Conversations because of the way they bring people from Australia and Southeast Asia together to talk about the region. But this year for the first time there was a substantial presence from one of those wider emerging great powers – India.

This was a session that produced a swift consensus when it came to great powers in Asia. It was better to have more rather than less– even if that made for some more challenging diplomacy on the part of the smaller countries.

There was general agreement that the US-India nuclear agreement had transformed their relationship and, according to one view, virtually given India its much sought status as a UNSC member. “This is the best thing that has happened in the region for five years,” – so one delegate evaluated the agreement that gives India access to nuclear technology.

Southeast Asia delegates welcomed India’s status as a fast rising power and expressed the hope it would swiftly increase its economic and diplomatic presence in Southeast Asia. For example, India was seen to be less interested in the Greater Mekong sub-regional development plans being pushed by ASEAN countries than either China or Japan.While there was enthusiasm for the idea of an expanded Indian role, some ASEAN delegates said that they did not want to create rivalry between India and China in their corner of the region. “I think India should see this as a big opportunity to strengthen its relationships,” one of these delegates said.

While relations between China, Japan, India and the US were central to regional stability, it was preferable that there were four countries with a complex web of relations than a repeat of the Cold War with two powers eyeing each other warily.

While the Indian delegates certainly felt their country’s future significance in the world was being overlooked in the slow reform of institutions like the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the Group of Eight economic powers, they also felt an affinity with the other smaller countries in trying to assess the ambitions of China, Japan and the US. “China is the benchmark for India whether we like it or not,” argued an Indian delegate, who could just as easily have been describing the way smaller countries need to think about China when making foreign policy.

The Big Powers: Japan, United States, India & China

cHair Mr Sid Myer

sessiOn 2

mr sudhir t devare mr rowan callick


The rise of China was the constant theme throughout this session, with one delegate observing that China seemed to feel that history was moving in its individual direction rather than in the direction of Asia. As a result, while China liked to conduct its Asian foreign policy via the forum of the ASEAN Plus Three (China, Japan and South Korea), it was not completely comfortable in the longer term with the idea that ASEAN should be the region’s hub.

ASEAN country representatives were resigned to the idea that China would exert more influence in their part of the region as it overtook the US economically, but revealed a keen interest in finding ways to offset China’s influence. “ASEAN sees some measure of threat but believes it is healthy to have a good relationship with China,” said one delegate. While costs have risen in China, Southeast Asian representatives remained concerned about competition from China for the shrinking pool of foreign investment, with one delegate expressing amazement at how China seemed

When the conversation turned to Japan there was considerable interest in whether it will embark on a sustained new engagement in regional political affairs but also suggestions that Japan was slower to take up opportunities for regional economic engagement than China and South Korea. The point was made that Japan couldn’t complain about other countries seizing economic opportunities when it took up to four years to conduct studies before embarking on investments. But despite this criticism, Japan was still a much sought after investor because it was seen to produce higher quality products than China.

There was much comment on Japan’s limited engagement with India with an Australian delegate pointing out that Australia had long had a greater trade relationship with India than Japan, despite Japan being a much larger economy. Likewise, India has limited engagement with ASEAN, as distinct from Australia’s strong relationship with ASEAN. But the delegate pointed out that this situation was now changing on both fronts as India’s Look East policy gained substance and Japan moved to develop its economic links with India.

to be able to keep producing items as basic as eggs more cheaply than ASEAN countries. But the discussions skirted around the sensitive issue of containing China – one delegate redefined containment in a more general way to say no one wanted a uni-polar Asia with one dominant player.

While the US was once the unchallenged power in Asia, much of the discussion about it at this session tended to focus on its relations with the other powers. There was a perception of a declining interest in the region – particularly in Southeast Asia – on the part of the US, but also a belief that it was not going to give up its ability to exert power. This perceived decline in interest was attributed to the single-minded US focus on the Iraq war and terrorism in recent years, and perhaps now the global financial crisis.

he mr sayakane sisouvong dr aileen san pablo-baviera



ms mara bun, mr sn menon, prof anthony milner

mr nick van gelder, ms rinalia abdul rahim

India’s Look East policy was a constant theme throughout the Conversations and this lunchtime session with one of the country’s most senior foreign policy makers set the scene.

Mr Ravi explained that the policy had started in a small way in the early 1990s as India opened its economy.

India has always had links to Southeast Asia from the post-independence period but these links had not been developed until both sides could see complementarities in the early 1990s. It was now a key part of the country’s economic and diplomatic landscape and a practical example of “South, South” cooperation.

Asked about how India saw the potential rivalry between different visions for Asian cooperation encapsulated by the existence of the ASEAN Plus Three group and the broader 16-member East Asian Summit, he said that countries with physical borders had always traded. But market size was important in the modern world, so larger groups were better than smaller ones.

Mr Ravi argued that foreign investors should not be put off by concern about Indian bureaucracy and would discover they could get comprehensive responses if they put forward specific projects. He cited India’s evolution as the back office of the world as an example of how economic policy had changed. This was an accidental development rather than something that had been centrally planned. It was just the outgrowth of modern communications technology that the government supported.

While India was getting involved in development projects in the Mekong development region of Southeast Asia, Malaysian companies were major players in Indian highway development projects. Mr Ravi foreshadowed more cooperative research projects with ASEAN countries arguing that a joint approach brought more benefits to both sides. Mr Ravi said the Look East policy was now being effectively extended to Southeast Asia as India sought to develop relations with Australia. He noted India was just starting to invest tin, coal and gas assets in Australia and Australia was promoting its mining expertise in India.

India’s Look East Policy

sPeaKer Mr N Ravi, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India

cHair Mr Tarun Das

KeynOte address

mr n ravi


Mahatma Gandhi’s role in Indian and world history is assured. But is a man who chose an ascetic and non-violent approach to independence and communal violence still relevant today?

In a new element of the Conversations program, the delegates took a step back from contemporary events for an excursion to Gandhi Smriti – the memorial to Gandhi in the house where he was assassinated in 1948. And then an unexpectedly intense debate commenced.

Citing the truism that all politics is local, Panda argued that India had benefited from the erosion of the old Congress party’s hold on power because the system was now more democratic. This did not mean – as some pessimists assert – that the idea of India is under challenge. Instead small regional parties like his were a beacon of hope to ordinary people, allowing them to feel represented in the Delhi national parliament. “The idea of India can hold, will hold, is holding despite the forces against it … but this idea is also evolving. If Gandhi had been alive today, he wouldn’t be surprised. He might even have embraced the breaking apart.”

Panda said all parties in India found something in Gandhi’s writing and life to support their contemporary activities – even if they couldn’t agree with each other. To the surprise of many delegates still reflecting on the images from the memorial, Panda proceeded to stake his claim on the legacy and argued Gandhi was more relevant in a political sense than in a moral sense.

The discussion started with an introductory view of Gandhi’s life from B J Panda – a second term member of India’s upper house and member of the Biju Janata Dal Party from the western state of Orissa. As a US-educated engineering and management graduate, Panda represents a new generation of Indian politicians who have entered politics after another career.

He swiftly shifted the focus from the sepia images of Gandhi’s life at the memorial to the present declaring: “It is crucial to rediscover Gandhi the politician and not just Gandhi the ‘god’.”

While many people are inclined to hanker after the stability Gandhi brought to India through the all-encompassing umbrella political structure of the Congress Party, Panda argued the modern day splintering of Indian politics is a good development.

Is Ghandi Relevant Today?

cHair Mr Sudhir T Devare

sessiOn 3

mr bj panda mr debnath guharoy


ms rinalia abdul rahim dr ly qui trung

This prompted a passionate rejection from one delegate who argued that at a time when the global financial crisis was forcing a review of modern values, Gandhi had a lot to offer as a moral force. “Here is an image right after Christ on the cross all the world can recognise,” the delegate said, adding that there appeared to be an absence of true recognition of Gandhi’s philosophy in modern Indian life.

While Indian delegates debated this point, participants from Australia and Southeast Asia drew a wide range of inspirations from Gandhi’s life. A businessperson argued that Gandhi was relevant to the conduct of modern commercial life. Another delegate noted how India was fortunate to have a unifying founding figure, something other countries including Australia lacked. Another regretted the divide over Gandhi as a spiritual or political figure, arguing that his spiritualty could be transferred to different spheres of life.

There was an intriguing debate about Gandhi’s relevance to the contemporary economic turmoil with one delegate pointing out that Gandhi had left an inward looking economic legacy that seemed at odds with the country’s modern quest to be a global economic player. He cited Gandhi’s support for the burning of foreign clothes and a tendency to question the need for technology.

But an Indian participant maintained it was wrong to present Gandhi as inward looking because his burning of foreign clothes had inspired Indians to produce their own textiles and go on to create a sustained export industry. He argued Gandhi still transcended all economic and demographic groups with his emphasis on integrity, living in harmony with surroundings, social inclusion, equal rights for women and looking to the long term.

An Indian delegate sought to sum up the session observing that he had not seen such a free discussion about Gandhi for a long time. The independence leader’s foundational role in the country had been overtaken by a tendency since his death to look outward for development ideas first from the Soviet Union, then the West and more recently to East Asia. He argued that Indian leaders since independence were “smaller people” than Gandhi and so didn’t want to be compared with him.

Another Indian delegate cautioned against romanticising Gandhi noting how many political parties and non-government organisations claimed to be maintaining his legacy. Gandhi had transcended India’s ethnic and religious rivalries during the violence that had followed the country’s partition. But no one seemed to be able to step into those shoes today amid a resurgence of such tensions.

One other delegate saw Gandhi as an inspiration for regional integration as a British-educated post-colonial lawyer whose spiritual philosophy could have more appeal in Southeast Asia than Chinese culture. Might he be the ideal figurehead for India’s quest to project some soft power in a region becoming more open to the adoption of cultural trends from other regional countries? But an ASEAN delegate also noted that India had a cultural influence in the region for tolerance and non-violence that pre-dated Gandhi. This delegate suggested that Buddhism was arguably a stronger and longer lasting Indian contribution to regional harmony.


dr montek singh ahluwaliaThere’s no doubt in one respect that India is quite fortunate the financial crisis is centred on the financial system in the United States and in Europe. It has actually led to an amazing loss of confidence in the financial system with a lot of loss of confidence across banks. We are not that directly affected because Indian banks do not have any or almost any exposure to the kind of problem assets that have caused difficulty in the United States and in Europe.

When I talk to my friend and colleagues who deal with industry, they say that while there has been a significant loosening of liquidity to the banks there is still a tightness of credit, especially in one or two sectors. So countering the liquidity squeeze is something that is still going on, but I think we are reasonably confident that we will be able to manage that situation.

As far as the real economy is concerned, a lot depends on how long and deep the recession in the United States and Europe is. India is much less dependent on exports than other Asian countries. I’m not saying this as a matter of pride. We want to be more dependent and we have been opening up and the degree of dependence has increased and all

Having said that we are obviously impacted by the shortage and the squeeze on liquidity that has resulted from the crisis. External commercial borrowings that were an important source of finance have dried up. Supplies of credits have dried up, so Indian industry is facing a shortage. We are reacting to that by pumping more liquidity into the system. It’s actually replacing liquidity that has been lost, so we don’t think it is going to lead to any adverse inflationary consequences.

We are looking to see how much is needed because there are no simple rules here. Like elsewhere you can make the liquidity available to banks, but you need to have willingness on part of banks to extend credit. That takes a bit of time to happen.

The Global Financial Crisis & India’s Economy

sPeaKer Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission,

Government of India cHair Mr Tarun Das

edited KeynOte address

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of that is good. But right now India is not as dependent still and that means a temporary downturn in the west – we hope it is a temporary downturn – will have less of an impact on India’s growth than it might for other countries.

We have made an estimate about a month ago that this very rapid growth that we have been having growing at about 9% on average for the last 4 years. This is going to slow down. The latest official statement we have made was that the growth rate of the Indian economy in the current year be between 7.5-8%. Since then the international news is much worse. We would be happy to be in the in the middle of that range. Depending on what happens internationally we could be even a little below that 7.5%. While that is a significant slowdown, I think that India’s underlying growth capacity is in the 8.5% range going up to 9% area. So we will be experiencing a temporary fall, below from what on the supply side is our potential growth rate.

How quickly we can get back from that potential depends on how fast the world economy gets back to normal. Opinions vary on that. Right now everybody internationally is very pessimistic. But that’s always typical when you get a severe recession. It’s the news of the day that carries the most weight. We are hopeful that the very substantial and significant efforts around the world to put the financial system back on track will succeed. When that panic subsides we will be well positioned to resume a reasonably rapid growth rate going back to 8% or even a little higher.

The big drivers in the Indian economy remain what they were. There’s a lot of strength in the economy, a very good savings rate, a lot of private sector capacity to invest, a lot of public sector commitment to build in infrastructure, So I think all of these are very strong fundamentals. We need the world to get back to normal for the full benefit of these fundamentals to be felt.

I had a research assistant do a graph of what is happening to our stock market compared with the Dow Jones index. If you look at it from the beginning of 2007 to now for the first year and a half the Indian index went way above the Dow, but then it came sharply down, but right now it is exactly where the Dow is.

I think what this reflects is that under normal circumstances India’s rapid growth was fuelling an expectation that stock values had a lot of real value. But when you have a complete panic in the heart of a financial system, it is very hard for anybody to be an outlier and everybody gets back to square one. So we are hoping the US stabilises as quickly as possible. That India is a much faster growing economy on much lower per capita income levels than the US is all very positive.”


Are there architecture, boundaries and common definitions? No, the Conversations had not shifted ground to an engineering conference but was now turning to one of its core objectives – how to define Asia.

If everyone who eats dahl is a South Asian, what makes an Asian, one delegate asked in an effort to get this session off to a different start from the usual alphabet soup of regional acronyms from APEC to the ARF.

An existing ASEAN project – supported by India – to revive an ancient Buddhist institution which is seen by some as the world’s oldest university was endorsed as a promising way of pursuing this vision of the region.

There was some discussion about whether Confucianism provided a similar common heritage, but one delegate argued that while China valued its Confucian heritage it would not be enthusiastic about the region being defined in any sort of religious terms. The delegate argued that while China was placing increasing emphasis on regional participation, it was also just as focussed on being a global player. “There is not too much sense of commonality between China and the rest of the region,” the delegate observed.

Much of the discussion was focussed around the big philosophical question of whether a region defines itself according to time, circumstances and culture or whether it is formally created by specific needs like trade liberalisation. If it is the latter, institutions matter and could well define a region in a way that doesn’t always seem appropriate. To illustrate this point one delegate observed that his country’s government saw the region as both a reality and a hope. The reality of its location defined the government’s approach to existing regional institutions and relationships. But the hope led it to have larger ambitions about its role in a broader Asian region over time.

Those who felt a region really defined it searched for the common underpinnings of a broader Asia with a tentative agreement amongst some delegates that Buddhism provided the most common shared heritage for Asia.

What Makes a Region?

cHair Prof Anthony Milner

sessiOn 4

mr shahriman lockmanms indrani bagchi


mr shahriman lockman ms gillian birdprof tai yong tan prof anthony milner

The clearest theme that emerged from this session was that India seems to be less preoccupied with trying to settle on a single or pre-eminent form of regional institutional architecture than many other countries. India is big enough to have parts of its identity in different regions, a delegate observed, as others tussled over the flaws in the existing institutions. Why confine us to one institution when we can be flexible and engage with different institutions for different purposes, the delegate argued.

The discussion ended with no new boundaries agreed or even a working definition of an Asian region. But as one delegate observed he no longer felt that to be an Asian he had to eat durian, sing karaoke and play golf.

Australia’s exclusion from the Asian group in the United Nations and India’s absence from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group. A delegate noted that India had come into the East Asian Summit (EAS) as part of a diplomatic balancing exercise rather than as an obvious member of a new broad Asian security and economic group.

Discussing Australia’s growing focus on a broadly defined Asian region, some Indian delegates expressed surprise at the increasingly comfortable relationship between Australia and Southeast Asia. This was something India should examine more closely. A positive development adding another layer of complexity to defining a region, was a recent opinion polling showed that younger Australians were more comfortable with Indonesia than older people.

Another delegate argued that an overarching regional body was important because otherwise countries would not get together in a way that forced them to deal productively with common trans-border challenges. Only the ASEAN Regional Forum provided this structure at the moment because it included both the US and India, but it was slow moving and focussed only on security. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s proposal for an Asia Pacific Community was briefly discussed within this context as a potentially valuable new regional organization, although acknowledged as being in formative days at present.

There was general agreement that changing institutional structures was difficult once they were in place - which made it important to skilfully manage the next steps towards regional institution building. Amongst examples of old rigidities left over from past imperfect institution building were



ms mara bun and mr sn menon

he mr sayakane sisouvong, mr gregory earl, mr sudhir t devare

ms jenny mcgregor and dr aileen san pablo-baviera

ms sudhir t devare and ms jenny mcgregor

mr tarun das and he mr john mccarthy

ms gillian bird and mr sn menon

prof tai yong tan, mr shahriman lockman, mr sn menon, mr sudhir t devare

mr debnath guharoy and ms kiran pasricha

he mr sayakane sisouvong, mr gregory earl, mr ts vishwanath, mr dilip chenoy

These are the issues that have featured prominently at recent regional diplomatic gatherings but are now supplanted by the global financial crisis. But the financial turmoil received relatively modest attention as this discussion focused on the issues that would remain to be resolved once the global economy has stabilised.

The previous night’s briefing by the Deputy Chairman of India’s Planning Commission, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, had also provided delegates with a reassurance that India believed it could ride out the turmoil and remain a source of positive growth for the world.

Climate Change, Energy, Food Security & the Economy

cHair Ms Jenny McGregor

sessiOn 5

The key elements in the Indian government’s policy are to protect the poor, achieve national growth objectives, pursue energy demand side management measures, develop necessary energy-related technology, use public private partnerships and pursue international cooperation on technology and research and development.

It was noted that India had played a prominent role in using flexible greenhouse gas reduction approaches and was now the world’s largest user of the Clean Development Mechanism process. The Confederation of Indian Industry had established its own centre to do energy audits and certify green buildings.

India’s nuclear technology deal with the United States was identified as an important platform for providing the country with cleaner energy, although there were also some questions over the viability of high-cost technological solutions.

The discussions ranged over India’s climate change policies, the diversion of agriculture production to bio-fuel, population movement, population growth, different attitudes to pollution in countries and when developing countries would be encouraged by internal forces to deal with climate change.

India’s approach to climate change has been to adopt a range of initiatives at home but emphasise the need for common but differentiated approaches at the global level that do not undermine the growth of developing countries. An Indian delegate said the country understood that it faced a fundamental challenge maintaining its economic growth at the targeted 10% level while managing fuel security and climate change.

mr dilip chenoymr debnath guharoy


ms jenny mcgregorms mara bun

India is a small producer of ethanol and bio-diesel and it was noted that this production involved some diversion of resources that would otherwise be food, at a time of rising food prices. But an Indian delegate said it was still important to maintain research on second-generation bio-fuels despite the food price rises.

Another delegate argued climate change should be a key item on all Asian diplomatic agendas because sea level rise resulting from a rise in the global temperature would have a greater impact on Asia than any other part of the world. It was estimated that of the 145 million people who would be displaced by a metre rise in the sea level, 90% lived in the Asia Pacific region. This would create a major new refugee flow across the region but the existing refugee convention does not cover climate change and instead focuses on dealing with religious or political persecution.

A more optimistic view saw some potential for climate change to bring different countries together to deal with the challenge. For example, Australia as a major coal exporter and China as a major coal user had an interest in trying to find ways of developing clean coal or alternatives. It was noted that while developing countries were slow to adopt climate changes policies because of concern about hurting economic growth, they were being forced to address pollution because of public pressure for change and higher living standards. This may become the avenue by which climate change is addressed.

There was an animated discussion about the practicality of allowing people in developing countries to own energy intensive consumer goods like cars but then try to discourage usage. One delegate had argued that it was difficult to curb aspirations in countries like India for people to own cars as they do in rich countries, but governments could still pursue policies to reduce their use like congestion taxes. Others questioned whether this was the best policy approach because once people owned technology like cars they would want to use them. It may be better to focus on providing public transport to curb aspirations for car ownership.

There was a growing sense of gloom as this session ended with delegates observing that they had again been reminded of the scale of the challenge of dealing with climate change but the way ahead to international agreement remained unclear.

With 500 million people due to be added to the Indian workforce over the next 40 years there was debate about whether this was a positive or negative development for India and what impact it would have on climate change abatement. It was argued that birth control should be a major part of the climate change debate in counties like India and countries that acted to curb their population growth could possibly receive carbon credits for this action. But others argued that India’s young population was one of its greatest strengths in maintaining economic growth. It was noted that it was ironic that countries like Singapore were trying to boost their population and the ageing population in Japan was seen as a drag on the economy. This led to general agreement that population movement was not yet being treated as a big long term challenge for Asia which would become more pressing with climate change.


Conversations delegates joined the members of the India-Japan-US Trilateral Dialogue for this presentation by India’s top foreign policy official.

With an audience that spanned the Asia-Pacific region, Mr Menon provided a wide-ranging insight into how India was engaging with the world at a time of economic uncertainty and geopolitical change.

He said the global financial crisis had seen most countries respond with a “quick non-ideological approach” which was the first time the international system had managed to do this in an economic crisis.

history in the current global climate was that it had always juggled multiple identities. It would not be prudent to view the South Asian, Southeast Asian and East Asian regions as concentric circles. “Bite size pieces won’t work,” he said in reference to the recurring debate about how to restructure regional organizations. But Mr Menon noted that India’s “natural partners” were sitting in the room and the current trends presented opportunities for the trilateral partners to find new ways of cooperation.

Mr Menon also addressed India’s quest for a greater role in global institutions, arguing that the relative weight of Asian countries in the management of international affairs would steadily increase. He said India was seeking a rules-based, predictable international environment. “We have an interest in the establishment of an open economic system,” he said.

Mr Menon said it was difficult to predict the extent of the crisis as the “past ways are no longer relevant.” In view of this, he said the preferred approach would be to “go back to the basics”. Stating that the countries represented at the gathering were all “joined at the hip,” Mr Menon said the sub-prime crisis had demonstrated how a problem in one region would impact the rest of the world.

Underlining a recurring theme of the Conversations, Mr Menon said India wanted to be part of a new open architecture in the Asia-Pacific region that could deal with the security concerns in India’s immediate neighborhood and in the broader region. One of the strengths of Indian

India’s Engagement with the World

sPeaKer Mr Shivshankar Menon, Foreign Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs,

Government of India cHair Mr Tarun Das

KeynOte address

mr shivshankar menon


When asked how soon the Group of Eight countries would become a broader Group of 13, he said it was up to the G8 to take that step. But Mr Menon said that there was much in common between the G8 and the five developing countries (India, China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa) touted as members of an expanded G8. “The mechanism is less important than what is achieved,” he said. India had not specifically pushed to become a member of the G8 but had found it had much in common with the other members of the developing country group. Mr Menon said the financial crisis has underlined the need to remake the instruments of the global financial system. Mere tinkering with the system would not achieve the desired results. Part of the solution would be found in democratizing the institutions, he said.

On India’s Look East policy, Mr Menon said that engagements with the ASEAN countries was a priority and there was dramatic shift in India’s trade and economic engagement towards the East with more than half of India’s international economic activity encapsulated by the Look East policy.

Referring to India’s approach to Myanmar, Mr Menon provided little hope of any swift change saying the current regime had displayed notable “staying power”. Myanmar not only had a long border with India but was a bridgehead to the Southeast Asia region with India’s highway and rail links to the region running through Myanmar. “So, we need to ensure stability in our periphery,” he said while noting that the Indian government would always listen to what its neighbours have to say.

from USD$200 million three years ago, indirect trade was estimated to already be USD$6.5 billion. “So, there is much more to the relationship than what it seems.” However, he referred to the violation of the ceasefire by the Pakistan army along the LoC, infiltrations from Pakistan and illegal cross-border activities, and the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul as key concerns that affect bilateral relations.

On the broader issue of India’s role in the political stability in its neighbouring countries, Mr Menon said the Indian government would provide support to neighbouring states in transition, like Nepal. He also talked about India providing support to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka. “We want to achieve the outcome”. As regards Bangladesh, Menon said that India was not overtly concerned about the elections in the country but the role of the army is an area of concern. He argued that democracy was winning the battle for hearts and minds on India’s periphery and this was a positive development for regional stability.

Responding to a question on China’s emergence, Mr Menon said India was not seeking a geo-political competition with its large neighbour which was already its second largest trading partner.

On the issue of climate change, Mr Menon said it was in India’s interest to address the problem but it could not be solved unilaterally. India’s per capita carbon emissions were already lower than that in the developed countries. He stressed that India was not going to stop developing and it was impossible to tell people to stop growing. But at the same time, India would work with its neighbours on issues like protection of glaciers.

On the question of relations with Pakistan, Mr Menon said the Indian government had worked for the last four years to settle outstanding issues with Pakistan within a framework of cooperation, and by avoiding the use of hard options. The ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) and the relative progress made in containing cross-border terrorism were the key results. The process of democratization in Pakistan put on hold some of the follow-up actions, but he said “we are happy to see a democratic government in power in Pakistan.” Mr Menon expressed hope that border trade between the two countries will grow, and said that while direct trade had reached US$2 billion


This session was a natural successor to the earlier discussions about climate change driving population movement across the Asia Pacific region but extended the Conversation to the crucial issue of developing the skills of that mobile population.

Much of the discussion focused on the dichotomy between the growth of higher education with both offshore study and the development of elite institutions at home and the slow progress in improving the quality of basic education.

There was discussion about the need for more public private partnerships to deal with this issue of the quality of the basic workforce with more effort to focus on less-skilled people, school drop-outs and people who needed career progression education.

An Indian delegate pointed out that contrary to what most people would think there were already signs of labour shortfalls in parts of the Indian economy that could restrain its future growth. “There is a huge shortage of labour in parts of India. It is a curious situation,” the delegate said. This was supported by the example of Bangalore where it was pointed out that there was a shortage of plumbers and mechanics to do the most basic work rather than a shortage of information technology specialists. A delegate observed that this problem was widespread leading to too much emphasis on university education across the region. “The downside is universities are seen as the only way of educating children but a growing economy needs vocational education. A greater linkage between education and work is needed.”

One delegate observed that for all India’s globally recognized achieve-ments in building a world-class information technology industry, its basic education system was not in a very good state. Enrolment figures were growing amid massive urbanisation but big questions existed over how long the newly enrolled students stayed in the education system.

Another delegate argued that India’s development of a business school provided a model that could be transferred to other Asian countries that wanted to provide more higher education at home. But this delegate said India’s capacity to provide sufficient education to the 500 million expected new entrants to the labour market so they could make a basic contribution to higher productivity was in question.

Capacity Building, Manpower & Labour Migration

cHair Mr Sudhir T Devare

sessiOn 6

mr sathit parniangtongms patricia roessler


Some delegates expressed concern about the foreign exchange losses being suffered by developing countries as more students sought better quality education abroad and the need for more information sharing amongst these countries on successful models for improving domestic education. A delegate from an ASEAN country said education was an issue that was constantly on the agenda of developing countries and was a key issue in any diplomatic dialogues with other countries. A delegate with an educational background said that in the recent past many countries had not been interested in adopting ideas from more developed regional countries like Singapore but that had now changed dramatically and there was much greater interest in learning from neighbours. For example, it was suggested that India’s efforts to establish a business school could provide a role model for Vietnam. Another delegate described how Vietnam had lowered

The role and responsibility of the private sector for dealing with these issues produced some of the sharpest debate seen at the Conversation sessions reflecting some quite different views about the development process. It was suggested that foreign businesses in developing countries could be specially taxed to fund better vocational education because those businesses were often concerned about the quality of the workforce. Another delegate argued the growing involvement of the private sector in education in some Asian countries meant the system was distorted by their interests: “you can’t build a country just with engineers”. But others said that business should not be held responsible for providing education in countries even though it was a beneficiary of a good system. Some delegates said that while companies provided extensive training to workers this was because it was in the interests of their shareholders to have trained staff not because they had an obligation to educate the society.

the educational requirement for foreign teachers because it was so anxious to boost the basic educational standards of its factory workers.

But some other delegates pointed out that the debate about a brain drain was getting more complex as more students were returning to countries like Vietnam after being educated abroad because of growing economic opportunities back home. Others argued even that even if more foreign graduates were returning, the ready access to foreign education tended to reduce pressure on government to improve domestic education. Another delegate argued that the shift towards one-child families across many parts of Asia was creating more pressure for better domestic education. While parents may only have one child to educate, they were paradoxically more inclined to want their one child to receive a good education at home and stay there.

There was considerable interest in greater use of distance education to both bring world best standards to Asian higher education institutions and to provide a better standard of education at the most basic vocational level in villages. Several delegates expressed interest in greater Australian involvement in distance education because of Australia’s experience in this field.

mr vinod c khanna


Mr tarun das

President, Aspen Institute India

and Chief Mentor, Confederation

of Indian Industry

Mr Tarun Das is the President,

Aspen Institute India and Chief

Mentor, Confederation of Indian

Industry. He is the Chairman of

the Task Force on Skills Develop-

ment as well as a Member of the

National Security Advisory Board

set up by the Indian government.

He is the non-executive Chair-

man of Haldia Petrochemicals

Ltd, India, holds non-executive

directorships on the Boards of

John Keells Holdings Ltd. (Sri

Lanka) and GIVE Foundation

India. He is also a member of the

International Advisory Board of

the Coca Cola Company USA and

The Asia Society USA. Tarun

is an Economics and Commerce

Honours Graduate from Calcutta

University, India and Manchester

University, UK. He has an

Honorary Degree of Doctorate

in Science from The University

of Warwick, UK and has been

conferred an Honorary CBE by

Her Majesty the Queen for his

contribution to Indo-British

relations. Tarun is the recipient

of the ‘Blackwill Award’ by

US-India Business Council, the

Singapore National Award (Public

Service Medal) by the Singapore

Government (2004) and the Padma

Bhushan (2006), one of the highest

Indian Civilian Government

Awards, for his contribution in

the field of Trade and Industry, by

the President of India.

Mr sid Myer

Chairman, Asialink

Mr Sid Myer has a Bachelor

of Economics from Monash

University and a Graduate

Diploma of Marketing from

Chisholm Institute. As the Chief

Executive Officer of Yulgilbar

Group of Companies, a diversified

investment group, Sid is

responsible for the development

and management of local

and international investment

portfolios. Sid has a strong

association with Asia, having

lived In Malaysia 1991–1995

where he managed a joint venture

investing in businesses across

Asia. In 2005 Sid was appointed

as a founding member of the

Australia Thailand Institute

set up by the Department of

Foreign Affairs and Trade to

promote relationships and

expand institutional, cultural

and personal links. Sid is also

a Director of The Myer Family

Company, a Vice President of the

Myer Foundation, a Trustee of the

Sidney Myer Fund, Chairman of

the Myer Foundationís Beyond

Australia Taskforce, which

supports Australian initiatives

in Asia, and Chairman of the

Zoos Victoria Foundation. Sid

was one of the two Australians

to be invited by the President of

Indonesia to join the Presidential

Friends of Indonesia delegation

in 2008. Sid was an invited

attendee to the Prime Minister of

Australia’s 2020 Summit, which

was a gathering of prominent

business people, academics and

persons of standing in Australia.

Mr sudHir t devare

Former Permanent Secretary,

Ministry of External Affairs,

Government of India

Mr Sudhir T Devare was a member

of the Indian Foreign Service

(IFS) from 1964 to 2001. He was

Consul General in Frankfurt and

Ambassador to South Korea; the

Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia;

and Indonesia. His last assignment

in the diplomatic service was

Permanent Secretary, Ministry

of External Affairs, Government

of India. Additionally, Sudhir

has held academic positions in

India and abroad. He is currently

a Visiting Professor at the

Jawaharlal Nehru University,

Centre for East Asian studies,

New Delhi. He was till recently

a Fellow of the Weatherhead

Center for International Affairs,

Harvard University. Sudhir is an

Associate Senior Fellow, Institute

of Southeast Asian Studies

(ISEAS), Singapore; Member of

the Eminent Persons’ and Experts’

Group, ASEAN Regional Forum

(ARF); Visiting Senior Research

Fellow, Institute of Southeast

Asian Studies, Singapore;

Vice-Chairman, Research and

Information System (RIS) of

Developing Countries, New Delhi;

Member, India Chapter of Council

for Security Cooperation in the

Asia-Pacific (CSCAP) and Member

of the National Security Advisory

Board, Government of India.

Sudhir is the author of India

and Southeast Asia: Towards Security

Convergence (2006), and A New

Frontier of Energy: The Bay of Bengal

Region (2008).

cO-cOnvenOrs jOint cO-cOnvenOrs

cOnvenOrs,cOMMittee MeMbers and natiOnal delegates


jOint cO-cOnvenOrs

Ms jenny McgregOr

Chief Executive Officer,

Asialink

Ms Jenny McGregor is the

founding director of Asialink at

The University of Melbourne.

Under Jenny’s leadership, Asialink

has become Australia’s largest Asia-

Australia centre with an annual

budget of over $8 million and

activities throughout Australia

and Southeast, Northeast and

South Asia spanning education,

the arts, media and corporate and

public programs. Jenny is on

the Advisory Board of the Asia

Institute, the Dunlop Asia Awards

and the Confucius Institute all

at The University of Melbourne.

She is also a member of the Arts

to Asia Advisory Committee and

a member of the APEC Women

Leaders’ Network. Jenny worked

as a political advisor and senior

manager in the Australian and

Victorian governments before

joining the Commission for

the Future in 1987 to research

Australia Asia relations. In 1993

she received the Peter Brice award

for outstanding contribution to

teaching and learning about the

Asia Pacific region and in 2008,

participated in the Australia’s

Future in the World stream of the

Australia 2020 Summit.

PrOf antHOny Milner aM

Asialink Professorial Fellow,


Basham Professor of Asian History,

The Australia National University

Professor Anthony Milner’s

previous appointments include

Dean of Asian Studies, The

Australian National University

(ANU) and Director of the

Australian-Asian Perceptions

Project, Academy of the Social

Sciences in Australia. He has

been a member of the Common-

wealth Government’s Foreign

Affairs Council since 1997. He was

a Panel Member of the Australian

Research Council and was a

member of the Australian National

University Council (2000–02). In

2005 Tony was appointed to the

inaugural Executive of both the

Australia Malaysia Institute and

the Australia Thailand Institute.

He is Co-Chair of the Australian

Committee of the Council for

Security Cooperation in the Asia

Pacific (Aus–CSCAP). With Jenny

McGregor (CEO, Asialink), he

has been closely involved in the

development of the Asialink

Conversations. Tony was educated

at Monash University, the

University of Malaya and Cornell

University, and has held visiting

appointments at The Institute for

Advanced Study, Princeton, The

National University of Singapore

and the Research Institute for the

Languages and Cultures of Asia

and Africa (Tokyo). His most

recent publication is The Malays

(Blackwell, 2008).

Ms Kiran PasricHa

Deputy Director General,

Confederation of Indian Industry

Ms Kiran Pasricha is the Deputy

Director General, Confederation

of Indian Industry (CII) and Head,

CII, USA. In this position, she has

been instrumental in initiating

CII’s Congressional Program,

the US India Strategic Dialogue,

India Business Forum (IBF) and

the Indian American Council

(IAC). She is the interim Executive

Director & CEO of The Aspen

Institute India. The CII US Office

under Kiran’s guidance is actively

involved in promoting trade and

economic cooperation between

India and the US. The US

office of CII also serves as a key

contact point for US businesses,

US Administration, Capitol Hill,

Industry Associations, Universities

and Think Tanks, State Govern-

ments and CII counterpart

organizations in the US.

During her 25 years with CII,

Kiran has held various positions

including head of department

of Membership Services and the

President’s Office, before taking

over the responsibility of the

North America Desk in 1993. She

moved to Washington in 1995 to

establish and head CII’s office in

the US. She also worked in the

private sector in Kolkata. She is a

graduate from Kolkata University.

Mr basudev MuKHerjee

Director, Aspen Institute India

Mr Basudev Mukherjee

received his Masters in Business

Economics degree from the

University of Delhi and joined

the Confederation on Indian

Industry (CII) in May 1992 as a

member of a Harvard Business

School study team that examined

the competitiveness of Indian

industry under the guidance

of Prof. Michael Porter. At the

conclusion of the study, he joined

the Economic and Taxation

Department of CII. In this

capacity, he worked extensively

on the annual preparation of CII’s

recommendations for India’s

Union Budget as well as key issues

such as privatization. In 2001,

Basu moved to CII’s US office

in Washington DC. During his

tenure, he worked closely with

Head of the US office in helping

promote trade and investment

linkages between India and the

US. As a natural corollary to his

work in the US, Basudev moved

to CII Headquarters in New Delhi

in 2004 to head CII’s U.S. Desk in

India. In early 2008, he moved to

the Aspen Institute India – a new

non-profit organization dedicated

to in-depth discussion of global

issues, development of leadership

based on values and a high-level

exchange of opinions, information

and values – as part of the start-up

team for the institute.

Organizing cOMMittee


Ms gillian bird

Deputy Secretary and Ambassador

to ASEAN, Department of Foreign

Affairs and Trade

Ms Gillian Bird was appointed

Deputy Secretary, Department

of Foreign Affairs and Trade

in December 2004, and as

Australia’s first Ambassador to the

Association of Southeast Asian

Nations (ASEAN) in September

2008. Before taking up her

position as Deputy Secretary,

Gillian served as First Assistant

Secretary, International Division,

Department of the Prime

Minister and Cabinet. Prior to

this appointment, she was Head,

Foreign and Trade Policy White

Paper Task Force (Advancing

the National Interest) within

the Department of Foreign

Affairs and Trade. Gillian

has held positions in the South

and Southeast Asia Division,

International Organizations

and Legal Division, Peace, Arms

Control and Disarmament Branch,

and Executive Branch, of the

Department. She has served

overseas in New York, Harare

and Paris. She has also worked

with the Office of the Minister for

Trade Negotiations since joining

the Department in 1980. Gillian

holds a Bachelor of Arts (First

Class Hons), University of Sydney

and is a graduate of French Ecole

Nationale d’Administration.

Ms Mara bun

CEO, Green Cross Australia

Ms Mara Bun is the founding

CEO of Green Cross. In the early

1990s, she was head of financial

and corporate matters for

Greenpeace Australia, and for

eight years served as a Director

on the Board of Bush Heritage

Australia as Treasurer. Mara was a

member of the NSW Sustainable

Energy Development Authority

Advisory Council for six years.

Mara’s private sector experience

is grounded in the finance sector.

She was a senior financial analyst

with Morgan Stanley in the high

technology area in the 1980s, and

returned to investment banking

in Australia as Senior Equities

Analyst at Macquarie Bank

covering Internet and e-commerce

equities. As Director of The Allen

Consulting Group, Mara advised

companies such as Microsoft

and Optus in relation to public

policy and Corporate Social

Responsibility strategy and

programs. Before moving to

Queensland two years ago, Mara

combined her commercial and

community interests in her role as

Director of Business Development

for the CSIRO, where for three

years she helped to shape science

funding partnerships involving

government, academic and

corporate interests. Mara was

Head of Research at CANNEX,

Australia’s leading consumer

finance research firm before

joining Green Cross.

australia

Mr rOwan callicK

Asia Pacific Editor,

The Australian

Mr Rowan Callick grew up in

England, graduating with a BA

Honours from Exeter University.

In 1987 Rowan moved to Australia,

and is currently the Asia Pacific

Editor for The Australian which he

joined in 2006 as the Beijing based

China Correspondent. He was also

the Australian Financial Review’s

China Correspondent, based in

Hong Kong, from 1996–2000.

From 1990–92 he was a senior

writer with Time magazine.

Rowan was a member of the

National Advisory Council on

Aid Policy from 1994–96, a board

member of the Australia Indonesia

Institute from 2001–06, a member

of the Foreign Minister’s Foreign

Affairs Council from 2003–06, and

a member of the advisory board

of the Institute of Excellence in

the Asia-Pacific Region at the

Australian National University

from 2005–2006. His book

Comrades & Capitalists: Hong Kong

Since the Handover was published

by the University of NSW Press in

1998. He won the Graham Perkin

Award for Journalist of the Year

for 1995, and two Walkley Awards,

for Asia-Pacific coverage, for 1997

and 2007.

Mr gregOry earl

Asia Pacific Editor,

Australian Financial Review

Mr Gregory Earl is the Asia Pacific

editor of the Australian Financial

Review (AFR) – the major business

and economic newspaper in

Australasia. He has more than

20 years experience working as

a business/political reporter and

editor. His interest in Asia Pacific

affairs began as a high school

student studying Indonesian,

followed by a year as an exchange

student in the central Philippines

city of Iloilo. Until recently, Greg

was AFR’s Tokyo-based Japan and

Korea correspondent. In 1994–99

he covered Southeast Asia from a

base in Jakarta. In 1988–91 he was

a New York based correspondent

that also involved reporting from

Canada and Mexico. He has also

worked as a political and business

reporter in Australia, opinion page

editor and was the AFR’s deputy

editor in charge of national and

international news in 2002–04.

Greg studied journalism at the

Royal Melbourne Institute of

Technology and economics at the

Australian National University.

He speaks some Indonesian and

Japanese.


Mr debnatH guHarOy

Regional Director Asia,

Roy Morgan Research

A graduate from Delhi University’s

St Stephen’s College, Mr Debnath

Guharoy’s career began as an

account executive at JWT Kolkata.

It was with Brooke Bond’s Middle

East business that his endless

journeys overseas first began in

the 1980s. His years with JWT

took him to Colombo, Jakarta,

and Hong Kong in both CEO

and Asia Pacific regional roles.

In recognition, he was elected

the youngest-ever Vice President

International of the world’s oldest

advertising agency. His years

as an internet entrepreneur led

him finally to Roy Morgan and

research. An adman-turned-

researcher, he helped establish

Roy Morgan in New Zealand.

Today, he leads the company’s

expansion into Asia. In its

fourth year, the Indonesian

survey is now used by more

agencies and marketers than any

other syndicated survey in that

country. The proving ground

for the conversion of Western

methodology in an Eastern

milieu, the challenges posed by a

multi-ethnic population of

230 million people puts his Asia

team confidently in position to

expand into ASEAN and India.

Debnath is also a columnist and

a delegate at international forums,

adding a unique perspective to the

development of research in Asia,

his stomping ground for over two

decades.

Mr viKraM niMKar

Country Representative – India,

Westpac Banking Corporation

Mr Vikram Nimkar has 14

years of banking experience

in India covering general

management, corporate

and institutional banking,

capital markets and credit

risk management. Vikram

is currently the Country

Representative – India, for Westpac

Banking Corporation. Westpac

is amongst Australia’s largest

financial services companies.

Vikram joined Westpac in May

2007 and is responsible for growth

strategies as well as increasing the

brand awareness of Westpac in

India. Prior to joining Westpac,

Vikram worked for ABN Amro in

India for 6 years and then with

Deutsche Bank in India for 7 years

as Vice President – Global Equity

Services. Vikram has a degree

in Mechanical Engineering and

Masters in Business Management,

both from Mumbai University.

Ms Patricia rOessler

Director of Education Initiatives,

VinaCapital Foundation

Ms Patricia Roessler is the

Director of Education Initiatives

at VinaCapital Foundation and

is leading the development of

the MBA School and the IMIV

for VinaCapital Foundation.

Patricia has a background in

tertiary education management,

and her seven years in Vietnam

have principally involved

establishing and managing several

large education institutions in

Vietnam, including the Royal

Melbourne Institute of Technology

(Vietnam), the country’s first

foreign-owned university, and the

University of Danang–University

of Queensland English Language

Institute in Danang. Patricia has

a Bachelor of Economics from The

University of Queensland, and a

Masters of Public Administration

from Harvard University.

Mr nicK van gelder

Senior Managing Director,

Macquarie Capital Funds

Mr Nick van Gelder is the Head

of Macquarie Capital Funds

for Asia and the Middle East.

Nick has been with Macquarie

Capital since 1997 and has been

based in Asia since 1998. Prior

to joining Macquarie, he spent

10 years mostly in the United

Kingdom, working in real estate

project finance, construction,

development and investment

management. Over the

past decade, Nick has gained

specialized experience in the areas

of infrastructure investment and

funds management throughout

Asia. In particular, Nick lead the

development of Macquarie’s funds

business in Korea, which saw

Macquarie’s investment in over 20

substantial infrastructure projects

with an enterprise value in excess

of US$10 billion. Nick’s present

responsibilities include the

development and management

of the Macquarie Capital Funds

business across Asia and the

Middle East, where Macquarie

has some US$5 billion of

infrastructure funds under

management. He also oversees

the development of a variety of

new infrastructure and private

equity fund initiatives planned

throughout Asia, particularly in

India, China and the Middle East.


Ms indrani bagcHi

Diplomatic Editor,

The Times of India

Ms Indrani Bagchi is the

Diplomatic Editor for The Times

of India, New Delhi. She joined

the newspaper in 2004. In this

capacity, she covers foreign policy

issues for the paper. Her areas

of specialization include nuclear

issues, India’s engagement with

the world, the changing nature

of diplomacy, immigration issues

as part of new foreign affairs

issues. She has also focused on

energy, technology as issues that

are covered under foreign policy.

She also writes extensively on

terrorism issues. Between 2003–

04, she was the Associate Editor

for India Today covering foreign

affairs. From 1998–2003, she was

the Deputy Foreign Affairs Editor

with the Economic Times. Indrani

was the Deputy Features Editor for

the Economic Times in Calcutta from

1993–98 and an Editorial Assistant

with the Statesman in Calcutta from

1988–93.

Mr diliP cHenOy

Director General, Society of Indian

Automobile Manufacturers

Mr Dilip Chenoy took over as

Director General, Society of

Indian Automobile Manufacturers

(SIAM) in 2004. SIAM is the apex

industry body representing 35

leading vehicle and vehicular

engine manufacturers in India.

Prior to his current role, Dilip

served as Deputy Director-General

with the Confederation of Indian

Industry (CII). At CII, he was the

head of the Associations Council

(ASCON), which comprises 129

industry specific associations

affiliated to CII and 23 industry

divisions and 14 national sectoral

committees representing major

segments of the Indian economy.

Mr Chenoy joined CII in

1985 and was a member of the

CII senior management team.

His work included consensus

building across industry sectors

and promoting the growth and

development of these sectors. He

was also the spokesperson for CII.

Mr vinOd c KHanna

Principal Consultant,

Tech Mahindra Foundation

Mr Vinod Khanna holds a

degree in Politics from Bombay

University; in Philosophy, Politics

and Economics from Oxford

University; and a degree in Law

from Delhi University. Vinod

is a former member of the Indian

Foreign Service (IFS) specialising

in Chinese affairs. He has also

served in the Indian embassies

in China, Japan and Germany

before being appointed Indian

Ambassador successively to Cuba,

Indonesia and Bhutan. Vinod

voluntarily retired in 1994 to

pursue academic and social work,

but was recalled to open the

Indian office in Taiwan in

1995–97. Prior to working with

the government, Vinod had a

distinguished career in academia

including positions as Fellowat the

Center for International Affairs,

Harvard University; Visiting

Ambassador, Department of

Chinese and Japanese Studies,

Delhi Universityand Director,

Institute of Chinese Studies,

New Delhi where he is now

Emeritus Fellow. Vinod is

Principal Consultant with the

Tech Mahindra Foundation

which was launched to address

the educational needs of the

underprivileged, especially

children, as well as espouse the

cause of women’s empowerment

in education. Vinod is also

Founder Trustee of the Pratham

Delhi Education Initiative and

Trustee, Rajeshwar Susheela Dayal

Charitable Trust. He has also

co-authored two books: India and

China: The Way Forward and The

Ramayana in Indonesia.

Mr sn MenOn

Former Commerce Secretary,

Ministry of Commerce & Industry,

Government of India

Mr S N Menon retired as

Commerce Secretary, Ministry

of Commerce and Industry,

Government of India in 2006.

Earlier, he had served in the

Department of Commerce for

almost three and a half years,

initially as Additional Secretary

& Financial Adviser and then as

Special Secretary in which capacity

he headed the Trade Policy

Division (TPD) handling matters

pertaining to multilateral trade

negotiations in the World Trade

Organisation (WTO) and regional

and bilateral trade agreements.

In addition to international

trade, he has a thorough

knowledge of the energy sector,

having worked both at the

State Secretariat level and as the

Secretary of the State Electricity

Board for a number of years.

Mr Menon had worked for 5

years in the North East between

the period 1971–75 in the State

of Manipur as Secretary to three

Chief Ministers of Manipur

and as Principal Secretary to the

Chief Minister of West Bengal.

Mr Menon is a Director on the

Boards of B.S.E, WBSEDCL, Tayo

Rolls Limited and Chairman of

Nicco Parks & Resorts Limited.

Mr Menon holds a Master

of Arts degree in History from

the University of Delhi. He was

awarded the Hubert H Humphrey

North-South Fellow under the

Fulbright Program, Humphrey

Institute of Public Policy,

University of Minnesota, USA.

india


Mr r s raMasubraManiaM

Vice-Chairman,

Feedback Ventures Private Ltd.

Mr R S Ramasubramaniam

is the cofounder of Feedback

Ventures, a leading integrated

infrastructure services company,

providing services in India, Middle

East and SAARC countries. At

Feedback, he is responsible for

overseeing internal operations

and for the management of select

strategic initiatives. He has been

actively involved in the fields of

infrastructure policy and planning,

design, project management and

capacity building. He has led and

participated in numerous projects

in sectors such as integrated

townships, highways, urban

infrastructure, hospitality, water

supply, etc. He has also been

involved with policy issues and

planning of infrastructure in rural

areas. Mr Ramasubramaniam

has an MBA degree from the

Indian Institute of Management,

Ahmedabad and an engineering

degree from the Indian Institute

of Technology, Madras. For the

past many years he has continu-

ously served on the National

Committee on Real Estate and

Housing of the Confederation of

Indian Industry.

Mr MadHu gOud yasKi

Member of Parliament,

Lok Sahba (House of the People)

Mr Madhu Goud Yaskhi is a lawyer

by profession. He was elected to

the Lok Sabha (House of the

People) in 2004, and is currently

serving as a Member, Committee

on External Affairs and Member,

Committee on Subordinate

Legislation. He founded “Madhu

Yaskhi Foundation” in 2003

and donates 25% of his personal

income to the Foundation. The

Foundation provides financial help

to distressed farmers’ families and

educating their children up to Year

12 standard; providing health care

facilities and education in rural

areas; provides legal assistance

to Indian artists who perform in

the US; and provides free legal

services to the needy. His special

interests involve working towards

upliftment of the rural poor;

fighting for the cause of social

justice; primary health care and

education; providing medicines to

lakhs of beedi workers, especially

women who suffer from TB and

asthma.

He Mr sayaKane sisOuvOng

Ambassador at Large,

Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

Lao People’s Democratic Republic

HE Mr Sayakane Sisouvong

is the Ambassador at Large

and Lao SOM Leader at the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lao

People’s Democratic Republic.

Sayakane’s career in the Ministry

reflects his aptitude for diplomacy

with over 20 years experience in

intergovernmental bodies and

regional structures. He joined the

department in 1983 as the USA and

Canada Desk Officer and soon after

posted to the Permanent Mission

to the UN in New York. He has

held Directorship in the North

America Division as well as the

ASEAN Division. Prior to his

current position, he served as

the Deputy Directory-General

of the ASEAN Department from

1996–98, before becoming the

Director-General in 1998.

Sayakane holds a Masters Degree

in Linguistics from the Unversidad

Central de Las Villas, Cuba

and another Masters from the

Australian National University in

International Relations. Sayakane

speaks three foreign languages:

English, Spanish and French.

laO Pdr

Mr bj Panda

Member of Parliament,

Rajya Sabha (Upper House)

Mr Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda was

elected to the Parliament of India

(Rajya Sabha) for his second term

in April 2006 from the State of

Orissa and represents the Biju

Janata Dal (BJD) party of which he

is the Parliamentary Party Leader

in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House).

Jay represents the new breed of

younger generation politicians,

educated abroad with alternate

careers before choosing to serve

the nation and contribute through

public service. A graduate

from Michigan, USA with a

combined degree in Engineering

and Management, Jay worked

in the corporate sector before

joining politics. In his earlier

corporate career Jay was associated

with industry organizations

like the Confederation of

Indian Industry (CII) and

the International Chromium

Development Association.

In the past he has also been

associated with the Government

of Orissa’s Industrial Advisory

Committee and been a Director

on the Industrial Promotion &

Investment Corporation of Orissa

(IPICOL). As a parliamentarian,

he is currently a member of

the Parliamentary Standing

Committee of Coal, Steel & Mines

as well as being the Convener of

the Subcommittee on Coal.

He was awarded the prestigious

“Bharat Asmita National Award”

for best parliamentary practices by

the Hon Chief Justice of India, Sri

K G Balakrishnan in 2008.


Mr sHaHriMan lOcKMan

Researcher, Institute of Strategic

and International Studies

Mr Shahriman Lockman is a

researcher for the Institute of

Strategic and International Studies

(ISIS), Malaysia’s premier think-

tank. His core research interests

are Malaysia-Indonesia relations

and Australia’s engagement

with Asia. He also closely follows

developments in regional

processes such as ASEAN, the

ASEAN Plus Three and the East

Asia Summit. Through ISIS’

membership in the influential

ASEAN Institutes of Strategic

and International Studies

(ASEAN-ISIS) network,

Shahriman has been involved

in the formulation of policy

recommendations to the senior

officials and leaders of ASEAN.

Shahriman serves on the

Malaysian member committee

of the Council for Security

Cooperation in the Asia

Pacific (CSCAP), a Track II

organization that provides policy

recommendations to the ASEAN

Regional Forum (ARF). He has

been involved in the deliberations

of the CSCAP Study Group on

Countering the Proliferation of

Weapons of Mass Destruction in

the Asia Pacifi c and the CSCAP

Study Group on Preventive

Diplomacy and the Future of the

ARF. In early 2007, Shahriman

was awarded a fellowship from the

Australia-Malaysia Institute (AMI)

and was a visiting fellow at the

Australian National University’s

Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy.

Ms rinalia abdul raHiM

Executive Director,

Global Knowledge Partnership

Ms Rinalia Abdul Rahim is the

Executive Director of Global

Knowledge Partnership (GKP),

the first global, multi-sector

network committed to harnessing

the potential of knowledge and

ICT for sustainable and equitable

development. She is one of

the world’s foremost experts in

the field of Knowledge and ICT

for Development. Rinalia was

appointed Executive Director of

GKP in 2001 and was responsible

for moving the GKP Secretariat

from Washington DC to Kuala

Lumpur. Prior to joining

GKP, Rinalia advised the Malaysian

Government on its ICT policies

and strategies. While working

with Malaysia’s National

Information Technology Council,

she designed and managed

various national ICT projects

and programmes and provided

advice to Parliament on ICT policy

issues. Rinalia is currently the

advisor for the UN-Global Alliance

for ICT and Development and

the International Task Force on

Women & ICT and a member of

the Strategy Council of UN-GAID.

She is also the Vice Chair of the

Global Action Network Council,

Member of the Jury for Malaysia’s

Prime Minister’s CSR Award 2007

and Council Member for Wawasan

Open University. Rinalia holds

a Master in Public Policy Degree

from Harvard University and

a Bachelor’s Degree in Political

Science from Princeton University.

dr aileen san PablO-baviera

Professor and Dean, Asian Center,

University of the Philippines

Dr Aileen San Pablo-Baviera is

currently Professor and Dean of

the Asian Center, University of the

Philippines. She lectures regularly

at the Foreign Service Institute

and the National Defense College

of the Philippines. Her research

interests include contemporary

China studies, international

politics and security in the Asia

Pacific, civil society in Asia, and

maritime affairs. Among her

recent publications are: Regional

Security in East Asia: Challenges to

Cooperation and Community Building

(2008), Regionalism and Community

Building in East Asia: Challenges and

Opportunities (2006), Post-Cold War

Strategic Interests of China and ASEAN:

the Role of the United States (2005),

and South China Sea: Managing

Territorial and Resource Disputes

(2004). She has held research and

teaching fellowships at Xiamen

University, National Chengchi

University, Japan Institute of

International Affairs, Beijing

University, and the Shanghai

Institute of International Studies.

PrOf tai yOng tan

Professor of History & Dean,

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,


Professor Tai Yong Tan is Professor

of History and Dean, Faculty of

Arts and Social Sciences at the


(NUS). He is concurrently Director

of the Institute of South Asian

Studies at NUS. He headed the

History Department from 2000

to 2003, and was chairman of

the National Museum Board

from 2003–07. He serves on

the editorial boards of a number

of academic journals, including

Modern Asian Studies, Journal

of Southeast Asian Studies and

India Review. He has written

extensively on South and

Southeast Asian history, and some

of his major books include Creating

Greater Malaysia. Decolonization and

the Politics of Merger (2008); Partition

and Post-Colonial South Asia: A Reader

(3 Vols, 2007); The Garrison State:

Military, Government and Society in

Colonial Punjab (2005), The Aftermath

of Partition in South Asia (co-authored,

2000) and The Transformation

of Southeast Asia: International

Perspectives on Decolonization (co-

edited, 2003). Tai Yong is a

Singapore delegate representative

of the India-Singapore Strategic

Dialogue, a joint initiative by the

governments of Singapore and

India. The first dialogue took place

in Singapore in 2008.

Malaysia singaPOrePHiliPPines


dr ly Qui trung

Founder and CEO, Nam An Group

Dr. Ly Qui Trung is the Founder

and CEO of Nam An Group

that owns and operates several

successful F&B businesses

including the award-winning

PHO24 franchise in Vietnam

and overseas. Trung has a

distinguished career as a pioneer

of franchising as well as an

acknowledged hospitality expert

in Vietnam. Trung is the Co-

founder of Tri Viet University,

Institute of Potential Leaders

and Chairman of the Leading

Business Club. He has also served

as Vice Chairman for Ho Chi Minh

City Tourism Association (HTA)

since 2006 and most recently, he

joined the Committee Council of

Asia-Pacific Center of Franchising

Excellence based in Australia.

In recognition of his

contribution to the hospitality

industry, he has been awarded

“The Australia-Asia Pacific

Executive Award” and

“International Alumnus

of The Year 2008” by the

Australian Government; “Saigon

Entrepreneur of the Year” (2005,

2006 and 2007) and “One of the

three leading entrepreneurs

of Vietnam” (Saigon Tiep Thi

Magazine). In 2007, Trung

was appointed Professor of

the Business School, Griffith

University in Australia. He has

Bachelor and Masters degrees

in hospitality management

in Australia in 1994 and 1995

respectively. In 2004, he completed

his PhD research on business

administration for hospitality

application in the US.

Mrs nguyen tHi HOng tHuy

Director of ASEAN Division,

Multilateral Trade Policy Dept.,

Ministry of Industry and Trade,

Viet Nam

Mrs Nguyen Thi Hong Thuy

is the Director of ASEAN Division,

Multilateral Trade Policy Dept.,

Ministry of Industry and Trade,

Viet Nam. Thuy is responsible

for overall economic issues

under ASEAN cooperation.

She participates intensively in

the negotiation process of ASEAN

internal agreements and free

trade areas between ASEAN and

its dialogue partners. Her fields

of interest include economic

integration policies and

impact to developing countries.

Before joining the Ministry,

Thuy worked as a Manager for

CeTE APAVE Southeast Asia, a

French consulting Group.

Thuy has degrees from the

Foreign Studies University,

National University and Foreign

Trade University in Viet Nam in

Russian, English and Foreign

Trade. In 2004, she won a

scholarship from the Lee Kuan

Yew Programme and obtained

her master degree in Public

Management from the Lee Kuan

Yew School of Public Policy.

vietnaM

dr satHit ParniangtOng

Associate Professor of

Management, Sasin Graduate,

Institute of Business Management

With over 20 years of experience

in management and consulting

with leading companies and

government agencies worldwide,

Dr Sathit Parniangtong is striving

to bridge the gap between the

academic and business worlds.

His current focus is in developing

a new strategic direction

for achieving a sustainable

competitive edge. Sathit also led

a team of over 30 professional

staff to complete a highly visible

project in collaboration with

Professor Michael E Porter to

formulate Thailand’s national

competitiveness. Prior to

returning to Thailand in 2000,

Sathit spent over 27 years in the

US. He held senior management

positions where he consulted

for leading US companies such

as General Motors, Lucent

Technologies, Inland Steel

and Staples. Internationally,

he consulted for business and

government organizations in

countries such as Brazil, Colombia,

Argentina, New Zealand, UK,

Canada, China, and Russia.

Currently, Sathit is Associate

Professor of Management at Sasin

Graduate Institute of Business

Administration of Chulalonkorn

University in Bangkok, Thailand,

where he serves as Executive

Director and Head of General

Management Program. He holds

a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. all from

University of Wisconsin.

tHailand


asialinK cOnversatiOns india 2008

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industry-led and managed organisation, playing a proactive role in India’s

development process. CII works to create and sustain an environment conducive to

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COM MEMOR ATIV EGR A NTS PROGR A M COM MEMOR ATIV E

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he mr sayakane sisouvong, mr sudhir t devare, dr ly quy trung

mr tarun das, mr sid myer, prof anthony milner

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